HOLLYWOOD  The stars swapped their shades and SPF for scarves and lip balm. Less than a month after the winter-wonderland premiere for Ben Affleck's Surviving Christmas, Hollywood Boulevard was decked out with snow once again to welcome the arrival of The Polar Express.

The "performance capture" film, which digitally morphs Tom Hanks into a boy, a hobo, Santa Claus and a train conductor, chugs into theaters Wednesday.

With the holiday season now officially underway, it's time for the Hanks family to begin planning its annual Christmas card, always an elaborate production.

"We do the whole family in 3-D," explained Hanks' wife, Rita Wilson, standing with her husband on the snow-white carpet outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre. "They have to be filmed with a film camera and then transferred to 3-D. We've had the family throwing balls and, another time, throwing kisses."

"The production meetings go on for weeks," said Hanks. "And stuffing the $5 bills in each card takes forever."

One year, Hanks persuaded close pal Ron Howard to shoot the Hanks family holiday card on the closed Whoville set of Howard's How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Another year, Hanks flew his family down to the Fiji set of Cast Away to pose for a beach-themed holiday card.

Robert Zemeckis, who directed Hanks in Cast Away and Polar Express, remembers receiving that card. "That was my favorite," he said. "They were all throwing beach balls at the camera."

Peter Scolari, Hanks' old Bosom Buddies co-star, voices the "Lonely Boy" character in Express. He spent several minutes with us pitching his concept for a Buddies reunion movie that would find Hanks and Scolari's old sitcom characters, Kip and Henry, back in drag as Buffy and Hildegarde, to escape government conspirators. Expect Scolari's Bosom Buddies movie to reach theaters sometime around never. (In sad news, Scolari reports their old Buddies co-star Wendie Jo Sperber, 42, is in the final stages of cancer, which has spread to her brain.)

In more realistic TV remake news, premiere guest Fred Willard has won the role of bumbling Dr. Bombay in Bewitched, and next week will shoot a scene with Nicole Kidman in which "an elephant comes crashing through Nicole's backyard."

Also in attendance: Nip/Tuck's John Hensley, 27, who wouldn't quite deny his reported romance with TV mom Joely Richardson, 39. Said Hensley: "The bottom line is we're really good friends, and anytime someone gets a picture of you with anybody, I guess it means we're together." Uh-huh. So are they? "The truth of the matter is she's amazing. Any day I work with her, I learn something new." OK, John, thanks for clearing that up.